Cancer patient Jane Kelly attends a pioneering cookery school in France that
teaches women how to revel in preventative feasting

It’s 9am, and the kitchen already smells inviting, even though the coq au vin hasn’t yet reached the oven. “It’s going to be really homey,” says Conner Middelmann-Whitney, a cookery instructor who teaches people how to recover from and even prevent cancer by feeding themselves a Mediterranean diet.

The previous night, I went with her to a local farm, near her home in south-west France, to collect a bag of fresh organic chickens. The pungent aroma comes from having marinated the birds in red wine, onion, garlic, thyme, bay and dried cep mushrooms.

The spicy plum crumble she is making for dessert also sounds “homey”, at least compared to our breakfast of millet porridge made with hazelnut milk, served with quince jam and homebrewed coffee.

Everything Conner cooks at home and on her pioneering anti-cancer cookery course is selected for its freshness and nutrient density. Things some of us take for granted, such as cows’ milk, bread and potatoes, are replaced with foods that provide a slower release of glucose into the bloodstream.

“Cancer cells love sugar,” she explains. “Glucose can act as a growth factor for tumour cell growth.” Nothing on Conner’s menu will give you a sugar rush, and she refuses to have refined foods – “anything that has been near a factory” – in her classroom kitchen. Instead, she has filled it with natural, seasonal foods, which she teaches her half-a-dozen students – professional middle-aged women from around the world, mostly – to cook slowly, the Mediterranean way.

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“It’s controversial,” she says, “but I am convinced that eating more fruit and vegetables, and avoiding mass-produced foods, will protect against cancer.” Conner became a passionate advocate of preventative feasting after she overcame early-stage cervical cancer ten years ago. Aged 33, a smear test showed that she had cancerous lesions on her cervix. They caught it early and she didn’t need chemotherapy, but it made her look again at her life. She was working in central London as a financial journalist, looking after her small son, while training as a nutritionist and helping her husband set up his new business.

“My office was in our bedroom,” she says. “Work had invaded every sphere of my life. I was at breaking point, getting by on sugar, starch and caffeine. It was a final alarm call. We decided to leave London and move to rural France.” Coccooned in a tiny village outside Toulouse, she junked her doughnuts and instant coffee habit and began eating “as though my life depended on it”.

Last year, she decided to open her cookery school in Toulouse and published a book, Zest for Life, which brings together 160 recipes that she believes can help those in remission. The key, she admits, is simplicity. “It’s really just a case of eating what your grandmother used to eat.”

Her belief in the restorative properties of good food honestly prepared was sparked when, faced with her own diagnosis, she found herself faced with contradictory studies about cancer. She now says that every breakthrough offered by medical science can be matched – if not bettered – by a well-stocked larder.

Take last month’s report that suggested a daily dose of aspirin can reduce the risk of several kinds of cancer: “People appear to benefit because aspirin reduces inflammation, which is known to spur cancer growth. But many foods such as garlic and broccoli are inflammation-cooling, and come without the negative side-effects of medication. They also have other nourishing and cancer-fighting properties.”

Conner focuses her teaching on the traditional Mediterranean kitchen, as she believes it offers the optimal anti-cancer diet thanks to its high proportion of vegetables, fruits, pulses, healthy fats (olive and walnut oil, organic butter), and low intake of red meat and sugar. “Occasional treats are fine, but 80 per cent of the diet should be 'grandmotherly’,” she says.

Of the seven women on the cookery course, I am the only one, bar Conner herself, who has had cancer – I’m in remission from ovarian cancer, and desperate for it not to recur. But, like one in three of the population, the others have been affected by it. Rebecca, 51, a former ballet dancer from Arizona, reveals that her mother died of colon cancer aged 59. Cecile, 39, a local mother of four, has several friends who’ve been diagnosed recently and, as a preventative measure, has attended several classes. “I resent the way it is seen as almost inevitable in middle age,” she says.

It makes for a relaxed morning at the chopping board. The women chat in French and English like contented hens. Katrin, from Germany, has lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease that appears to increase the risk of cancer, and wants to strengthen her defences. Françoise, a busy engineer with children, admits she is addicted to deep-fat frying and is looking for inspiration to change her ways.

After three hours around the stove, lunchtime has finally arrived. Conner whizzes up an orange, carrot and ginger juice, and assembles a goats’ cheese salad, made with milk from local animals fed on organic grass and alfalfa; the bread crouton is replaced by a thick slice of apple.

The chicken has been stewed slowly, preventing the formation of carcinogens that can arise when meat is cooked rapidly at high temperatures. Rather than frying, Conner prefers to steam, poach, boil and stew. Carrots are cooked lightly and kept whole, releasing falcarinol, a natural compound which has been shown to reduce cancer in rats.

The chicken was more gamey than I am used to, but full of what Conner calls umami, Japanese for “yumminess”. The “plumble” was wonderfully nutty, with a custard made from six eggs and hazelnut milk; she sometimes adds powdered green tea for a surprising twist.

“I want to empower people to do it themselves,” says Conner, “and I hope all my recipes are easy enough to do at home in under an hour. It is about changing your diet gradually, but it is also about enjoying tasty food.”

A French classic, coq au vin is full of ingredients with cancer-protective properties: onions, garlic, herbs, immune-boosting mushrooms and polyphenol-rich red wine. Itt’s also easy to make and wonderfully satisfying on a cold winter’s night. I usually cook the chicken with its skin on, as this keeps the meat moist; just remove it before eating.

*To marinate the meat, place it in a sealable container or zip-lock bag and combine with red wine, shallots, garlic, dried mushrooms and herbs.

*When you’re ready to cook, heat 2 tbsp olive oil gently in a heavy-bottomed saucepan on medium heat. Remove chicken portions from red-wine marinade (save this for later), place in the saucepan and cook until the meat is golden on both sides. Remove chicken and set aside. £With a slotted spoon, remove shallots/onions, garlic, herbs and mushrooms from the marinade and cook in the same saucepan. After five minutes, sprinkle with flour and stir until well absorbed. Return chicken portions to the saucepan, add chicken stock and red-wine marinade, salt and pepper lightly. Bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer, covered, for 30-40 minutes.

While the chicken is bubbling away, heat 1 tbsp olive oil in another pan and cook fresh mushrooms for 5-10 minutes, stirring lightly, until they have released most of their moisture. £Add to the chicken and continue cooking until the meat is tender, about 15 minutes. If it looks too 'saucy’ for your taste, leave the lid off to allow some of the moisture to evaporate. Season to taste with salt and pepper, sprinkle with parsley, decorate with grapes and serve. Accompany with bean or cauliflower mash to help absorb the delicious juices.

Healthy chocolate-beetroot cake

The French have a love of dark, gooey chocolate cake, often called fondant (melting) or mœlleux (moist), to reflect its sticky richness. And that’s the snag: ordinarily, these cakes are so full of sugar and butter that they simply couldn’t qualify as healthy. Here, I use antioxidant-rich beetroot for moisture and sweetness while flour is replaced with ground almonds, making this cake gluten- and dairy free. If you have a blender, it’s ridiculously quick and easy to prepare. And because this cake is extremely nutrient-dense, a small piece will be enough to satisfy your dessert tooth. It will keep for several days in the fridge.

*To melt the chocolate, break into small pieces and place in a glass or metal bowl together with the olive oil. Boil some water and pour into a larger bowl. Set smaller bowl on the hot water and stir chocolate and oil until they have blended into a smooth, velvety liquid. £Add this to the batter in the blender and whizz to combine. Fold in but don’t blend the cherries or prunes with a spoon.

*Pour into prepared cake tin and bake in preheated oven for 35-40 minutes. To test for doneness, a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake should come out clean. Remove from oven and place the three squares of chocolate on top of the hot cake; leave to melt and spread over the surface with the back of a teaspoon. Sprinkle with grated coconut, toasted flaked almonds or, for a special dinner-party touch, a few crushed pink peppercorns.